Chapter 89
Chapter 89
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 89
Chapter Title: Serendipity (11)
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Celestina, who had been hurriedly following behind me, suddenly stopped speaking upon seeing the scene outside the building.
"Th-this is..."
There, waiting in place, were dozens of former mercenaries.
"......"
To me, they all seemed like thoroughly familiar faces.
After all, they were the very people I had personally nursed and tended to over the past three weeks.
Former special-grade mercenaries affiliated with the church, Los Salvador.
However, these thirty gathered here were now called by a slightly different name.
Among them, a particularly familiar man named Lonzo stepped forward with a greeting.
"The full thirty members of the Episcopate have arrived at the Saintess's summons."
Selected from the most outstanding among the saved, these thirty had been upgraded with Class 8 implants.
At a glance, they didn't look much different. But the equipment embedded in their bodies was now entirely new machinery.
The existing Class 7 implants had already been on par with military-grade specs, but these were on a whole other level.
'Not just the simple price tag.'
Of course, they were inherently high-end gear. But Class 8 came with conditions far beyond that—not just anyone could use them.
Namely, the astronomical risk of Cybernetic Rage onset. A morbidity rate hundreds of times higher than the class below. Across the entire city, only a tiny fraction could bear that burden and wield them with a sound mind.
That was why even the rigorously vetted talents hand-picked by corporations used them at the risk of their lives.
'In the original game, units with that caliber of implants showed up as corporate elite squads—sometimes even as quasi-bosses.'
Their prestige was clear from the maintenance costs alone for managing just one Class 8 implant user. Tens of thousands of credits vanished every week. At that point, the word "efficiency" no longer applied.
They had simply cherry-picked the absolute best out of sheer necessity.
No corporation or military could churn out such forces indefinitely.
These thirty Episcopate members, who had received those implants and adapted without side effects through my miracles...
Finally meant our Radiance Church now held power comparable to the city's corporations.
But it didn't stop there.
"Th-that's..."
"Ah, they've arrived."
Smoothly approaching from the distant sky were several large AVs.
The people who disembarked from them...
"Lumina Holdings Executive Special Protection Team 1. By order of the Chairman, we will now escort the young lady."
These were the reinforcements Grandfather had sent for this incident. His personal guard team—every one of them a Class 8 implant user.
And even that wasn't the end.
Footsteps that mimicked humans but thudded far heavier. Soon, dozens of military androids came into view.
Truth be told, I hadn't even anticipated securing their cooperation.
'Just on a whim, I asked...'
Sion's androids, who had been staying at the cathedral, readily pledged their full support for this operation.
Despite having no direct stake, they promised aid so willingly it bordered on suspicious. When I cautiously inquired about the reason, the commander unit RX-937 replied:
"If it is the will of God, we shall gladly obey."
It was a response that left even me, the one asking, a bit dumbfounded.
I had no clue when these androids had turned into such fervent Radiance Church devotees.
'Could it be the influence of those chapel classes Clarice has been attending so diligently lately...?'
In any case, they had made their way here via the smuggling routes we'd used during the war against the Nexus Initiative.
"This is... what in the world..."
Celestina stared at the spectacle in stunned disbelief. She reacted even more strongly to the military androids—after all, she'd been tangled up in the Nexus incident too. The eyes she fixed on me trembled endlessly.
"........"
But right now, there was no time to explain everything to her. To definitively halt her father's dangerous unilateral action before dawn broke, I had to deploy every resource at our disposal.
I wasn't some starry-eyed idealist fixated on blindly helping strangers.
I'd resolved to aid Celestina precisely because I was confident we could resolve this crisis unscathed.
And here, those forces bolstering my confidence had gathered.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Boom-! Thud!
Vibrations that shook the entire building to its core, paired with muffled explosions echoing down from the upper floors.
Right in the heart of that chaos, Celestina followed the girl ahead of her through the middle of the office.
"......."
".........."
The headquarters layout—now a total wreck, but once so familiar.
Celestina traversed that corridor alongside Eve.
A dozen or so guards encircled the pair without a single gap.
To Celestina, these weren't mere mercenaries. The prowess they'd displayed en route here matched her father's personal detail, each and every one.
And these were just a sliver of the forces Eve had assembled.
Celestina could only gape in astonishment at the realization. Unanswered questions knotted tighter in her mind, but she couldn't voice a single one. She merely watched the girl's back—slightly ahead—with eyes that quivered.
'What in the world...'
Of course, leveraging her still-active vice president privileges, she'd bypassed a good chunk of the headquarters' defenses.
But she never imagined it would be this overwhelming. It felt like the laws of reality were crumbling.
'What on earth is going on...'
Celestina knew better than anyone.
Tessellation's security wasn't pushovers. Guards from most other corporations would be in the same league.
Yet in this instant, the power mobilized at Eve's mere word was utterly abnormal.
Even her father couldn't have foreseen this wildcard.
"........."
Celestina remained utterly bewildered.
When she'd first met Eve, she'd pegged her as a wide-eyed innocent, untouched by the world's grit.
That unadulterated purity—lavishing kindness without a thought of reciprocation.
A humble nature that made it hard to believe she was heir to a behemoth like Lumina Group. It sparked mere curiosity, nothing more.
But as their connection deepened—as she probed further—the girl grew ever more inscrutable.
Celestina thrived on investments.
As an information broker at heart, she'd dug into Eve long ago.
Not just her tie as the Lumina Chairman's kin, but her role heading some odd religious outfit.
She'd dismissed it as Lumina Group's latest venture—pushing suburban expansion under a religious banner. Sure, its flock had ballooned unnaturally fast, but it barely registered.
What captivated Celestina wasn't the cult—it was Eve herself.
"....."
Yet now, she could no longer pin down who this girl truly was.
The one walking beside her right now...
Someone who wielded might that would daunt even corporate brass, as casually as breathing.
To Celestina, she felt utterly alien. Nothing like the pure, unassuming girl she'd known.
Lost in those thoughts—
Another boom-! thundered from above.
The floor-shaking quake made Celestina stumble despite herself. In that moment, someone gripped her hand tight.
"....!"
Whirling around on instinct, she found Eve gazing at her with concern.
"You okay? Didn't get hurt, did you?"
The warmth seeping from their clasped hands. Even amid the mayhem, that thoughtful care. Suddenly, Celestina realized it: this gentleness hadn't wavered from their first encounter till now.
It felt like pure magic. This one girl's presence alone was unraveling every chain that had bound and tormented her.
Avoiding eye contact, Celestina stole glances at Eve. Unspoken questions echoed in her chest.
'Eve... who are you, really...? Why go this far for me...?'
A single word bubbled up from memory.
Radiance Church. A faith devoted to living by the will of the merciful, compassionate god Radiance.
Celestina had felt nothing at first—just vague oddity. Praying to some invisible, inaudible entity struck her as pointless waste.
But... when despair too vast for her alone loomed.
If a god truly pitied mortals and rained salvation from on high, wouldn't it look exactly like this?
She gazed at Eve again. Steadfastly beautiful, profoundly enigmatic. Whatever secrets lurked within no longer mattered.
Celestina figured nothing more could shock her now.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Thank you for the treatment, Saintess."
"No need. This is the least I can do for those fighting in my stead."
Celestina blankly watched the scene unfold before her.
"......."
Fresh casualties descended from the floors above.
Eve prayed toward him, and light flickered briefly from her fingertips. Blood staunched; severed limbs regrew.
The man, wounds fully mended, bolted right back up to rejoin the fray. A near-corpse just moments prior.
Yet no one batted an eye at the madness. Not a flicker of surprise.
Celestina alone watched, her mind reeling into haze.
"......."
She felt on the verge of passing out.